Dylan Haugen and I recorded this because 17-year-olds get told to pick retail or the drive-through. Dylan had dunks, travel, and a calendar that would not survive a closing shift. He needed work that bent around the life he was already building — and paid him to learn skills that still exist after the job ends.
My line in the video is the title: most jobs extract value from you. Get a job you extract value from. Soft skills, client delivery, a weekly report. Those travel to the next company, the next relationship, the agency you might found later.
What did I actually do after high school?
In the two and a half years after I graduated I built and ran businesses, worked around a private-equity seat, and taught applied digital marketing in rooms like Johns Hopkins. That is not a flex. It is the proof that you can break the mold if you will deliver for a real client first — usually a parent or a friend’s company — before you try to scale an agency.
Dylan met Dennis Yu in January, saw the apprentice factory, and qualified. Same door I came through, different sports.
College or this?
You can do both. A degree is one bet. This work is transferable even if you change industries. The AI Apprentice overview is the operating manual. This video is the career advice underneath it.
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